[Zope] RE: [ZCommerce] RE: Philip leaves Arsdigita (was:Re:[Zope]kerberos ? + LDAP + ecommerce + ZEO replication etc)

[Albert Langer]

[Chris]
> > I'd like you to figure out whether you'd like to mow my law, Michael.
> > There's big things in it for you.  Get back to me in a week, please.
;-)

[Walter]
> YO, dude:  Analogies are odious, but this one really stinks.  Neither
Albert
> nor Michael, nor anybody else in attendance here asked you to analyze the
> opportunity of mowing his lawn, or anything of the sort.  While we all see
> something to gain in the opportunity arena we've been attempting to scope
> out (else why are we even talking?), let us not kid ourselves about who it
> is that stands to gain the most.  Yeesh.

[Chris]
I'll revise this analogy (I realized it wasn't accurate after I had sent
it).

Walter, you're a florist.  I'd like you to plan the planting of a garden in
a public park.  You should "own" this effort, which implies you should
actually mow the land and plant the flowers if nobody else is willing to do
it.  Then I'd like to you then water it and weed it for perpetuity (you own
it don't you?).  I can't pay you, but I'm willing to provide input on which
flowers should be planted.  There's big money to be made in gardening, and
people will be able to see that you did a great job on the garden.  We all
know you want to be a gardener, and you're the one who stands to gain the
most from this garden, because you sell flowers.

To a certain extent, the pattern desribed in the analogy makes sense.
Perhaps you could make money as a florist planting a garden in a public
park.  Perhaps you *do* want to be a gardener.  But (describing the 81
dangling fishbowl proposals), what if you had 81 people ask you to be things
you're not at the same time?  What if you didnt actually want to be a
gardener?  Or a landscaper?  Or an exterminator? What if you had decided
that being a florist was just fine?

I'd *love* to see this project scoped out.  I just bristle at the notion
that *DC* absolutely, incontravertably has to "own" it when it's just not an
area that we've decided to do battle in.  We've decided to concentrate on
the content management space, which has so far only proved to be
tangentially related to ecommerce.  If you don't like this, I'm sorry, and
we'll need to agree to disagree.

[Albert]
Stop bristling - it doesn't help. Hot air that bristles is really pathetic.

One reason that ecommerce stuff needs somebody to own it is
because as well as the very interesting stuff that Walter, Richard
and others were talking about, it also involves things like
order processing, payments and audit trails that are utterly
fascinating to accountants.

Accountants are very boring people, worse than hairdressers. Most
open source developers would rather do something more interesting,
with more interesting domain experts. Even the beancounters would
rather be lumberjacks.

So if you need ecommerce done, it has to be paid for, and that has
to be done by someone that can make money from doing so.

But the main reason you asked for but didn't wait for a reply on,
as to why DC ownership of the APIs is needed is pretty simple. It doesn't
make sense to commit even minor resources for anything more than a prototype
unless somebody in a position to keep watering the APIs has made a
commitment to do so, by "owning" them, and a reasonable judgment can
be made that they do seriously intend to do so because they
do believe it is in their own interests to do so.

Without that there won't be more than prototype development for
ecommerce on the Zope platform. That means either:

a) DC decides it's in it's interests,

b) Some other company that can be relied on to do
it decides that it is in it's interests

c) An open source community that looks viable takes it on

d) Zope does get not get an ecommerce capability, as opposed
to prototypes.

So far a), b) and c) hasn't happened so d) has been the result.

Paul's said he wants c) but has been discussing a) with
Walter in what I thought was a more positive manner.

In that discussion he *asked* why DC should "own" such a project.

You previously announced that you weren't speaking for DC and anything
more you said would be just hot air. As I'm re-reading this, I've
just noticed Walter, having responded. Instead of treating whatever
you say as "hot air", he's treating you as some sort of spokesperson
for DC and drawing the obvious conclusion. That's dumb - he should know
you are just full of hot air, since you are at least honest enough
to admit it when you bungle (that is sincere). So I don't have time
to polish this up and am leaving the rest unedited in the hope of
catching him before he unsubscribes. It's the aggro version which
I usually leave for 24 hours before re-writing.

I specifically asked for an "official" reply *not* to be given immediately.

Paul gave one immediately, half of which was bristling and the
other half saying that I had a point. Last few messages I saw included
him saying:

"To tell the truth, I'm mad at myself for
responding strongly, particularly as our position on this is weak.  The
folks in zcommerce have been doing the work, not DC, so I didn't have
much right to get torqued.  And besides, his idea has merit."

I haven't (yet) seen messages from zcommerce developers saying they
are pissed off. I have noticed one from someone associated with
EMarket expressing interest in similar ideas as Walter about some
things. That was also the situation a year ago when another one
mentioned moving to ZPatterns to be able to support RDBMS access
in response to a posting on OpenACS.

Walter's given some answers and I haven't seen an "official" response
yet. I got the impression Walter *was* waving some money around. He's
certainly in an industry that needs exactly what's been talked about
For a CTO with 30 years experience in a low tech services industry
that doesn't usually have CTO's, he has a remarkably deep understanding
of why. The dotcoms don't need DC's consulting services - they
need a miracle. Sectors like where Walter's coming from do. You are
talking to him like you don't even know he's one of your customers
and want him to be one of your open source developers. Have you even
looked up where he's coming from?

It would be odd if Walter wasn't keen enough on getting the job done
to help pay for it - and odd if he couldn't see possibilities of
recovering the costs from others with similar needs. But he's
obviously been doing some research and he *said* he wants to help
pay for it while you are abusing him for not doing so, when I'm
quite sure you really meant to be abusing me (which doesn't worry
me in the least - at least you got it right - I am not offering
to help pay for it).

Now he's pissed off - and that doesn't help either.

When starting off this thread I mentioned I'd be going on the warpath
on the first anniversary of having raised the issue. That isn't until
6 June and I don't have time to get *really* pissed off until then.
So give me a break, please.

If I wanted to get pissed off I'd have got pissed off at being
told to read Eric Raymond on what open source is about - but I
managed to just ignore it. The only reason I can't just ignore
you is because you insist on announcing what you believe I think.

If occurs to me that you might be doing that with respect to DC
too.

If an "official decision" has been taken and you've been told to
deliver the news the way you are, please say so. Otherwise, please
take Walter's suggestion to let it go over the long weekend (and
Walter, please take your own suggestion too). Sheesh I'm a
*professional agitator* by trade - my role in this sort of thing
is to beat CEO's around the head with clubs until they get angry
enough to start looking for arguments to prove I'm wrong and they
are right, after which I can just move on because they aren't stupid
and know what to do when they can't come up with those arguments.
It doesn't win friends, but it does influence people. I just don't
have *time* to be telling junior staffers not to piss of the CTO
of one of their customer's. So many heads to beat,... so little
time (sigh ;-)

[Chris]
Furthermore, I don't even think you and Albert are talking about the same
problem.  I believe Albert is talking specifically about porting ACS'
ecommerce module to Zope.  You want collaborative filtering and
personalization.  They aren't necessarily even related.  We've been talking
about OpenACS' ecommerce module as if it's the holy grail, but are you sure
it solves your actual problem?  Have you thought about what it doesn't have
that you want?  It's a major job just to decompose all the problems exposed
in these gargantuan email replies.

[Albert]
Mike doesn't agree with at least part of what I'm saying - but the views
he did attribute to me were correct. Yours are not. It may well be my fault
for not explaining them clearly enough but you have said yourself that
you are having difficulty following what I am on about and I can assure
you that you simply have not got it.

Likewise I did not suggest "get back in a week" but just agreed with
your estimate from nearly a year ago that a week's work would be needed to
review OpenACS. That would be better spread over several weeks.

Nor do I believe all that's needed is an interface to the SQL
tables replacing the Tcl interface.

It certainly isn't Walter's fault that you haven't the foggiest clue
what he's on about as he has been *very* clear.

Please take this as a general denial of any views you may attribute to me.
Any further attempts on your part to describe my views will be responded
to in 19 words or less as you requested - and you won't like any of them.

I'm not prepared to try to explain it to you until after you have stopped
bristling, and then only if you actually do want to find out what I think
rather than tell me what I think. If you don't want know, fine. But
spare me your beliefs about what I think.

[Chris]
To address the rest of your mail, I don't doubt your experience nor do I
think that having a Zope "ecommerce story" is a bad idea.  My problem is
understanding how it's possible that DC *needs* to do this.  Do you think
we're just a bunch of guys sitting around without a plan who need to have
some structure put in to our lives or what?

I will reiterate that Zope is a platform.  You can build on it what you
like.  Please, go ahead!  Don't wait for us!

[Albert]
You obviously haven't got the foggiest clue about what Walter's experience
is or how to deal with a customer that says he needs something.

If, after time for reflection, DC does decide, for whatever reason, that
it does not need to do this then I think it is pretty likely that somebody
else will do as you insist. Looks like there are some unusually savvy suits
around who would know what to do if they can't get what they need for a
fairly small project that they understand the need for.

Ecommerce is *not* just another application as you keep saying, so it
does require some actual staff resources committed to it. But you are
right about them not being huge resources.

Since both Zope and ACS are open source, it wouldn't be enormously
difficult,
for people who do understand why open source is a plausible business model
to
get some developers (lot's more looking for jobs these days) and raise
enough for a small properly staffed project based on existing code bases.

But it would certainly take longer and wouldn't be done as well and would
cost more to do because DC *are* the logical people to do it. The recovery
of those extra costs could only come from direct competition with DC in
the same market - offering similar consulting services *with* ecommerce
expertize lacking in DC, under a "Powered By Pissed Off" button
instead of a "Powered By Zope" button. I doubt that would be good for DC.
On the other hand it would certainly require that DC spend the time
necessary to get familiar with Ecommerce issues, so maybe it would be
good for DC.

Meanwhile, I suggest that you and Walter just have a good weekend, and
Walter talk to Paul, not Chris, after the weekend. (Paul's entitled to
a weekend off from being clubbed too ;-)